


Water Lily

by peterflopker



Category: Avengers: Endgame (2019), Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: And The Lame Older Brother That Cares, Angst, But he's still here, Fluff, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Precious Peter Parker, Quentin Beck Is A Good Bro, Quentin Beck Is A Good Guy, Quentin Has Real Powers, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, lol should have mentioned that, tony stark is dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 21:17:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19070848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peterflopker/pseuds/peterflopker
Summary: A day after meeting Peter, Quentin would have gone to his assigned cot, taken off his costume, and went to sleep because the kid would be healed just enough to be back and running when he wakes up and the cycle would repeat.Now, as he watches Peter clench his fists and then hiss through his teeth as his nails dig into sensitive palms, hearing Fury whisper furiously to Maria Hill about Peter’s failure and knowing that Peter can hear them clearly, and seeing the dark shadow in the small boy’s eyes, Quentin can’t help but feel partly responsible for letting Peter fall into himself like this.





	Water Lily

**Author's Note:**

> Because I live for Quentin Beck being Best Bros with Peter Parker in Far From Home, only to beat the shit out of him in the next movie

Quentin isn’t an idiot, nor is he insensitive to ignore someone’s  _ obvious  _ suffering. Much less if it’s someone that has to order an orange juice at a bar. Mysterio can make anyone see anything, but Quentin can see everything. 

The illusionist has known Peter Parker for, give or take, six days, but even he knows that there is not a single bad bone in the sixteen year old’s body. He also finds that the kid is one of those “Suffer in Silence” people, and initially, he was okay with that because that meant Quentin didn’t have to worry about any of Peter’s personal problems biting them  _ both  _ in the ass. 

In the beginning, he was impressed by the teenager’s ability to think under the heavy weight of lives on his shoulders and still save every single one of them. He was happy to see that there were still people in the world, even if it isn’t his, that took this job just as seriously as he did. Sure, he was annoyed at the kid’s one-liners and quips at  _ 70 feet tall monsters _ , but they were mostly amusing so he let them slide.

That was in the beginning, and back then, Quentin hadn’t paid attention to  _ how  _ Peter saved lives. Spider-Man is a hero, but he can be a pretty dumb one. Whenever Mysterio has a quick second to observe how well his partner-in-crime-stopping is doing, he always finds the red and blue boy shielding the people by using himself as a target. He would laugh at how little, short Peter Parker makes himself look six feet tall with the aura of Thor himself, but it always ends up with Peter half-covered in blood and it doesn’t sound so funny to Quentin anymore. Using oneself as a target is a sacrifice that the illusionist understands, that sometimes a hero really needs to get out there to protect the people. 

But Spider-Man has thrown himself into the fire when there’s an easier way to put it out. The teenager is shoved into situations with a safer solution, but he still manages to stick his head into danger and is almost killed as a result. 

Quentin probably shouldn’t care. He has a job, Peter has the same and he is actually doing very well despite the way he is doing it. If Spider-Man died fighting the Elementals, then Fury would  _ surely  _ find another hero to take his place and the mission would continue. But Quentin will never watch a child die if he has the smallest chance to prevent it. 

He sees Spider-Man throwing himself into danger, and he can see Peter Parker putting himself through hell. 

Usually, after a battle that they didn’t quite win or lose, Spider-Man is already swinging back to their sewage base and Quentin always finds him a little ways from the rest of the team, pacing the stone-cold floors with red-rimmed eyes and shaking pale hands. The older man feels Peter’s thoughts and even though he can’t hear them, it’s always  _ loud.  _ The teen will always turn his head to wipe at his eyes like it would do anything, and turn back to face him with a smile that hurts them both. 

“You did good.” Quentin would say with a soft smile, placing a comforting hand on that thin shoulder. 

“I could have done better.” Peter would whisper. 

Then he does. If “Better” was risking every limb that he could possibly possess, then Peter was better. Spider-Man makes no mistakes when pulling a child out of the way of a collapsing building, then using the debris as a weapon to throw. He doesn’t stumble when he runs along the side of the sand creature, all the while he is dodging all the bullets that the local police shoot, and most of the time, he makes it out okay. 

His luck runs out, though, and it takes longer than Peter himself expected because he lasts a little more than a week without actually being on the verge of death. A feat that Peter believes to be an achievement. 

Now, Peter is laying still on a cot, blood soaking his bandage-covered bullet holes and skin blotched with burns. His calf was bent at an odd angle, and his chestnut hair was somehow only slightly singed, but his suit was burnt beyond repair and Fury sent someone out to burn the rest of it so no one would have its remains or know that Spider-Man was ever there.

A day after meeting Peter, Quentin would have gone to his assigned cot, taken off his costume, and went to sleep because the kid would be healed just enough to be back and running when he wakes up and the cycle would repeat. 

Now, as he watches Peter clench his fists and then hiss through his teeth as his nails dig into sensitive palms, hearing Fury whisper furiously to Maria Hill about Peter’s failure and knowing that Peter can hear them clearly, and seeing the dark shadow in the small boy’s eyes, Quentin can’t help but feel partly responsible for letting Peter fall into himself like this. He grimaces when the doctor stitches one of Peter’s wound shut even when the skin surrounding it is concerningly tender. 

“Parker.” Fury growls with fire in his eyes, marching toward the bedridden boy. 

“Hey, wait.” Quentin immediately steps between the two. “Let me handle this, Nick. You won’t make it any better.” 

Fury looks like he wants to rip the two of them into shreds, the only thing stopping him is the fact that he can’t currently reach any other heroes. Any  _ competent  _ heroes. None of his other agents or soldiers ever let an entire bridge burn down, but this is what happens when you die for five damn years and the world doesn’t stop spinning. Maria feigns a cough, and Fury jabs a finger into Quentin’s chestplate. 

“No more  _ fuck-ups. _ ” Then, after a thought, “And don’t call me Nick.” 

Then the two are walking out of the bunker, probably to a cheap three-star secret hotel, and after the doctor is finished stitching up Peter’s wounds and rubbing some sort of cream onto his burns without a blink to Peter’s groans, everyone else follows suit. 

Peter doesn’t move when they are alone, and Quentin doesn’t know what to say. The stench of the bunker is disgustingly more noticeable now that there isn’t much to put their attention to, and Quentin uses his magic to make it seem like the smell isn’t there at all. 

“T-thanks…” Peter groans, but still manages to give the man a thumbs up. His enhanced senses weren’t doing him any favors with the smell. 

“Yeah, no problem.” 

Quentin pulls up a chair next to Peter’s cot and sinks down into its rusted metal. The silence between them isn’t quite awkward and not completely comfortable, but Peter doesn’t seem bothered at all so he doesn’t let it affect him either. 

“This wasn’t what I was planning for my vacation.” Peter laughs weakly. 

“You’d be crazy if you did.” Quentin chuckles. 

“I was thinking, maybe, swimming on the beach. Get a little tan maybe…”

Peter tries to sit up, but the wraps on his arms and torso stiffen his movements and prevent him from being able to complete the simple task. After a minute he is successful, and the older man pretends to not notice Peter struggle to place a pillow behind his back. 

“I heard Venice has some really good ice cream.” Peter grunts, trying to play off his misery. “Don’t really remember where from though.”

Quentin decides that he would rather hurt Peter’s pride than let him hurt himself any further, so he grabs two pillows and fluffs them behind the younger’s back. 

“Thank you. Again.” 

Peter looks away when he gives Quentin a smile and the older man doesn’t return it. The boy’s chest moves as if it is afraid to, and there is a threat of his lip bursting open even more if he so much as moves it. Quentin stares at the burns and the way Peter’s fingernails look like they want to stab into something, and knows that his injuries aren’t the only thing hurting him.

He has seen pictures of the boy from before, five years ago for him but only about five months for Peter, and he can’t help but notice how his eyes shined so much brighter in the past. He watches him now, the way Peter stares like he is afraid that someone will die if he blinks and how his shoulders are always poised to defend himself. 

On the couple nights when Spider-Man is too tired to swing back to the hotel his friends are staying at, he sits on the edge of his cot, ears twitching at the sound of a rat scurrying past. A dropped pebble sounds like a gunshot and Quentin pretends that he doesn’t see Peter jumping from his seat. When Fury shouts, no one will mention how the younger hero will shuffle behind Quentin’s large, green cape. 

Now the boy sits on his cot, tapping his fingers to a beat he doesn’t hear and acting like the world within him isn’t in rubble and dust. Had Quentin been a villain, he’d be happy to admit how easy to would be to tear the boy apart. 

“What’s going on, Peter?” He asks without preamble.

“Nothing? I think I’m internally bleeding, but that’s normal.” Peter tries, smiling despite dried blood staining his teeth. 

“You’re always so cheeky. Why?” Quentin hopes that his stare is intense enough to make Peter say anything other than a joke or a lie. 

“Well, what else would I be?” 

“Honest, maybe.” 

“Lucky for you, I am.” 

“You just proved my point.” The stare must not be intense enough. 

“There’s nothing wrong, Quentin.” 

“You’re full of shit, Peter.” Quentin says not unkindly, but not as fond as usual either.

Peter winces nevertheless, and the guilt inside his small chest triples in size. 

“Okay,  _ ‘nothing's wrong’, _ okay.” Quentin sighs. “But what you did today was dangerous, and I honest to god have no idea why you did that. If there’s something going on, something that’s making you want to go out there and die, th-“

“I’m not suicidal.” Peter bites with offense in his voice. “If that’s what you’re implying.”

Quentin leans back in his chair, slowly crossing his arms as to not spook the boy. “Suicidal or not, you’re acting too recklessly to be considered mentally stable. It’s going to get someone killed.” 

“My job is literally to protect people.” Something in his voice breaks. “I won’t let that happen.” 

“What about protecting yourself, Peter? Who’s going to protect the people if you aren’t there to do it?” When Quentin realizes that his voice raised without his permission, he finds that he doesn’t particularly care. Especially when Peter’s attention is finally fully on him. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself, okay?  _ Not suicidal,  _ okay. But something is already killing you inside, and I get it if you don’t want to talk to me about it. That’s cool. But talk to someone, anyone.”

“I’m  _ fine,  _ Quentin,  _ I’m fine.” _ Peter grips his singed hair and tugs harsher than necessary. “Jesus Christ _ , you’re just like Tony.”  _

Peter pauses and his eyes widen as if he is just as shocked as Quentin is. Though Quentin really should not have been surprised, Fury mentioned the relationship between Peter and Stark, but he figured it was just a mentor and mentee type of deal, but the tears that form in Peter’s eyes prove that it wasn’t as simple as that. 

When he read the file on Peter that Agent Hill gave him, he noticed that three out of the four legal guardians that had custody over Peter were deceased. Tony Stark wasn’t in the list of parental guardians, he legally did not have custody over him, but  _ ‘Connections with Tony Stark. Ally with Iron Man.’ _ was written in the additional notes and he should have given more thought to it. 

He knows about the final battle that Earth-616 had with the Mad Titan Thanos. He knows Spider-Man fought as well. He also knows that Tony Stark died saving the entire universe. 

Though it wasn’t written in pen, Quentin had a thought that perhaps death follows Peter like a plague. Not that he would ever say that aloud.

“S-sorry.” Peter croaks out. “Didn’t mean to be rude about it.” 

“It’s okay, Peter.” Quentin gently places a hand on the lesser burns of Peter’s arm. The poor kid really looks like hell. “It’s fine. But, whatever you’re going through, you don’t have to be alone for it. Don’t force yourself to be.” 

He contemplates it, determining if telling Quentin, a guy who he has known for a week, his problems that he hasn’t even told Aunt May of yet was a good idea. There are quivers in the vigilante’s burst lip and his injuries seem more prominent despite nothing changing in the last five minutes. His face wrinkles and his eyebrows furrow and Quentin hopes that he takes up his ‘Therapy’ offer because he wonders when the last time his teammate even thought of his problems properly. 

In another world, Quentin would have taken advantage of his weak state and broken him apart with the simplest illusions. In this world, he just wants to help a grieving kid move on. 

“There’s no point.” Peter finally says, his voice has never sounded more exhausted. 

“So what if there isn’t? Peter, you look like a damn mess. Whatever it is, it’s important.” Blood drips from the side of the boy’s head, and Quentin carefully wipes it away. 

“There’s just no  _ point,  _ Quentin. He’s never going to hear what I have to say, so what’s the damn point of saying it at all?” Peter raises his voice, not quite yelling but with barely restrained irritation all the same, and Quentin takes no offense when he roughly pushes his hand away. 

The burns on Peter’s hands are already almost done healing with his enhancements and whatever was in that SHIELD cream, but Quentin can see that it still has a sting when Peter’s nails bite into his palms, so he carefully holds the younger’s hand as a friendly reassurance. He grips it tighter when the boy doesn’t snatch his hand away. 

Peter’s breathing begins to pick up in an irregular manner, and Quentin carefully guides it back to normal before he can slip into a full-blown panic attack. 

“I-I’m sorry.” A tear falls. “I-m sorry for yelling.”

“Hey, hey, it’s fine. This is good for you.” The man responds, wiping it away. “Yell all you want.” 

“I j-just.” A sniffle. “I don’t want to talk about it.” 

Quentin bites his lip, wanting the boy to face his problems but also not wanting to be the cause of a breakdown. 

“I’ll talk about it someday, I promise.” Peter reassures, placing a shaking hand on a golden gauntlet that hurts him to look at. “Just not today, I think.” 

“Okay.” The illusionist sighs. 

The darkness of the bunker feels menacing to even the older man and sleep doesn’t call out to him just yet, so he uses his magic to conjure up a luminescent illusion of Dumbo flying with his floppy ears.

Quentin smiles when he hears Peter let out a soft chuckle and creates more illusions. More cartoon characters light up the dim tunnels. Cinderella, Mulan, Bugs, Popeye. With each one, the illusionist can feel threads of tension releasing from the boy. 

“They’re pretty.” Peter whispers, almost like he is afraid that if he speaks too loud, the cartoons will disappear. 

“Glad you think so.” 

Quentin morphs the illusions, changes Bambi to the Captain America of his world and Cinderella to an alternate Ant-Man. The Avengers of Earth-833 are similar to those on Earth-616 only in superhero aliases. While Steve Rogers passed on the mantle of Captain America to Sam Wilson in Earth-616, Sam Wilson had always carried the shield in Earth-833. Steve Rogers never even existed, and Natasha Romanoff became the Winter Soldier. Thor is the almighty Jane Foster. James Barnes works alongside Kate “Hawkeye” Bishop in SWORD, and the Scarlet Witch is Billy Kaplan. 

Though it is similar enough to cause a hitch in Peter’s breath whenever he sees Natasha, the Avengers of Quentin’s world is nowhere near the same as Peter’s own. Despite that, there’s more amazement than anything when he watches ThorJane use a lightning blast to blow up an entire castle or Sam Wilson take down an entire helicarrier with only his shield. For a second, Peter forgets.  

The pain came back tenfold when the scene shifts to the Battle of Hamsterdam and a suit of red and gold armor suddenly shoots through the body of a Leviathan and barely makes it out on the other end. 

Quentin feels Peter still under his larger hand and with a flick of his wrist, he scrambles the illusions and drowns the tunnels in complete darkness. Neither of them moves a muscle. Quentin feels bad enough that he barely feels Peter’s painful grip on his hand. 

“Shit, Peter.” Quentin rubs furiously at his eyes. “I’m sorry.” 

“No, no, it’s fine.” It’s not. They both know it’s not. 

“I...I think I’m gonna go to bed now…” Peter whispers, his voice lost in the silence. 

“Yeah, yeah, alright. I think I’m gonna do the same.” The lump in Quentin’s throat has never been drier. 

They close their eyes, but neither of them rests. In the morning when the SHIELD agents shuffle back into the bunker, Quentin is uncomfortably slumped in the same chair as the night before and Peter will realize that he still has the other’s hand in a death grip. 

~~~

“That wasn’t Tony Stark, you know.” The words come from nowhere and the fork held in black fingerless gloves hesitates in the air long enough for pasta to fall off. 

They had won another battle, this time with the cloud monster and no one was struck by the deadly lightning blasts. Without Fury yelling and not a body bag in sight, Quentin thought Peter could benefit from a reward of some sort and so he bought the best marinara pasta his mint green dollars could buy and flew them both up to a secluded rooftop that overlooks the best sights of Venice. The talk they had two nights prior seemed to wake up Peter just enough to where he isn’t diving head-first into death, but Quentin can tell there’s still an aching at the back of his head. 

“What?” Peter questions. 

“The illusion from that night. When the suit shot through the Leviathan in Hamsterdam?” Quentin prods at his memories, looking deep into Peter even as the other doesn’t do the same. “That wasn’t Tony."

“Oh.” 

“It was Nathaniel Richards, Iron Lad on my world.” He continues. “Tony Stark is the CEO of Stark Industries, of course, but Nathaniel is Iron Man. Well, our version of him, anyway.” 

“That’s...cool. Nathaniel sounds like a good person.” Peter takes another bite of his pasta and doesn’t continue. 

Quentin clenches his jaw. 

“I can make illusions of anything, you know.” He goes on, forgetting all about his meal. “Big, small, real people, sometimes I can combine the faces of two people. It takes some concentration though…” 

He takes the faces of Beyonce and Taylor Swift, combining them as a demonstration. Peter chokes on a laugh and a noodle at the odd face that the pair form. Quentin takes this as an absolute win and mixes Loki and ThorJane, Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson, Wanda Maximoff and Steve Rogers, and each one gets a laugh out of the younger boy. 

“Wait, wait, wait! Do me and Ned!” Peter suggests and takes a picture of the adorable combination to send to his best friend. 

In a moment of confidence, Quentin creates an illusion depicting the one and only Tony Stark.

The wheezing laughter immediately cuts itself off, but this time, Quentin doesn’t wave the man away. Instead, he forms the rest of his body, clad in a fancy suit and half a million dollar watch, tall in only confidence, and with a smile that seems too real to be made from his tricks. 

“What are you doing?” Peter jumps to his feet and moves a couple of steps away, wide eyes never once moving from the man in front of him. 

“I don’t know if I would be able to help you personally.” Tony slowly reaches a hand towards Peter. Even though the man isn’t even real, the boy still feels guilty at Tony’s face when he cowers away from it. “But I think he can.”

“He isn’t real.” The thought of running into the man’s arms and feeling nothing but cold air paralyzes Peter with fear. 

“He’s real enough.” 

Tony walks forward and before Peter can escape, he pulls the boy into a hug. The squeak that the boy lets out turns into a sob as he feels a solid, warm body holding him tight to a chest. A chest with a live, beating heart. It feels nothing like the hurried embrace the two shared on the battlefield months prior, the silky tie feels nothing like the cold, haunting metal of their nanotech suits. The silent, warm buzz of the arc repulsors as they hugged were nothing compared to Tony’s calloused palms rubbing circles in the aches of Peter’s back. If he doesn’t think, this Tony is  _ real.  _

“I got you, kid.” Peter whimpers at the sound of the calm, rough voice that he hasn’t heard in  _ months _ . A security blanket of protection wrapped around his entire being, and if Thanos somehow came back, Peter had no doubt that even the fake Tony would protect him.

“I-I-I’m sorry.” The cracks in his voice were shards of glass to Quentin’s heart. “I-I’m  _ so sorry,  _ Mr. S-Stark. I’m sorry.” 

“God,  _ please  _ don’t ever say those words to me again.” Air is squeezed from his lungs when strong arms tighten around his body. “You don’t have to apologize to me about anything.”

“You did everything  _ right,  _ Peter.” Tony kisses his cheek in fatherly affection. “ _ Everything.” _

“You died. I killed you.” Quentin doesn’t remember a time Peter sounded younger with the despair in his voice and the full belief that he killed the World’s Best Defender. 

“No, no, Peter.” Pulling back to stare into Peter’s tear-filled eyes, Tony holds his face as if he is a trembling child rather than a superhero that once clutched the universe’s deadliest weapon. “I died, yes. But, you  _ did not  _ kill me. You didn’t.”

“But I-”

“Hey, the adult is talking.” The words make Peter feel like he is fifteen again, but this time they don’t carry the frustration or irritation from before. This time, it’s spoken softly with so much love and Peter lets more tears fall for the five years they could have had together. “C’mon.”

Tony moves them to the edge of the roof-top, and hands Peter his bowl of pasta after they sit. When Peter looks behind himself, Quentin is gone. 

“I thought of you every day, you know.” Tony whispers, looking softly down at his boy. The hand that snapped an entire army away looked as if it never knew pain as it slips around Peter’s shoulders. “Every day, all those years. I didn’t want to, but you were everywhere.”

“Heh, I can relate.” Another tear slipped down Peter’s face. 

“It hurt to think of you, all I would see was dust in my arms, but it hurt more to think that after me and May, no one else would. So, I, uh, put your name first in the Heroes of the Final Battle plaque up at the Avengers Compound. You were right up there with Gods and aliens and all the other heroes that you looked up to. I’m sorry that you died and all you got was your name in a rock.” His voice cracks and Peter squeezes his hand in comfort without nothing to say and a desire to hear the man’s voice. 

“Morgan loves you, Pep and I told her stories about you all the time. I think Spider-Man might be her second favorite hero.” Tony continues, more light-heartedly. “After me, duh.”

“Yeah, I know. She calls me Spider-Boy every time I visit.” The laugh that comes out of Peter feels like a wave of relief rushing through Tony. 

“Believe it or not, she didn’t get it from me.” Tony ruffles the brown mop of curls fondly. “Pep always saw you as the fifteen year old boy with an IQ to rival mine. Even after the Vulture.” 

“So did you.”

“I did.” Peter chuckles at the confession. “As in used to, past tense. Then you fought side-by-side with a magical wizard, some aliens, and a genius who thought he could take down a God on his own, and then you died.” Tony stumbles over his words, but continues nonetheless. 

“Still even after you... _ Disappeared _ , you jumped right into the biggest battle any of us could have faced, and of the two of us, who is still breathing real air? You came face to face with the biggest bad in the history of big bads, and  _ won. _ And, now? Jumping into the flames for the little guy, but this time it’s literal. We’re going to work on that, by the way.” Peter’s healing lip quivers, a rough hand messing up his hair even more than before. 

“You’re Spider- _ Man _ now, you always were, and it’s time I admitted it.” 

A cold breeze causes Peter to shiver, and Tony wraps a blanket of green smoke over his shoulders. 

“I do remember those dumb movie quotes you used to say all the time, though. I seriously don’t know how you memorized eight movies worth of lines.” Tony jokes, bumping his shoulder against the smaller. 

“You love those movies.” Peter laughs, eyes wet. 

“I loved them more with you.” Tony’s eyes look alive, but older than Peter remembers. “Even when I couldn’t understand what was going on because you kept telling me your  _ very detailed  _ theories, or when you said the lines louder, faster, and more dramatic than the actors.  _ God, you were such a nerd.  _ You made them better.” 

“I didn’t watch each movie eighty-seven times for nothing.” Peter chuckles, pinching his bruises to distract himself from the pain that blossoms inside.

“I hid the copies you left at the Compound in a box with everything else. After, you know. But, you know how kids are. They get grabby and curious, and Morgan found it when she was three. The first time, she fell asleep halfway through the first movie, but we still watched the entire thing  _ every month _ . It was torture, I seriously don’t know how you and Ned did it.” 

“Wow, so, even in death I was still ruining your life.” The humorless joke was out of Peter’s mouth before he could even think about it, and Tony pushed his pasta out of the way to suffocate him against his chest. 

“You ruined  _ nothing _ . You made everything better.” He murmured into his curls, and Peter’s pasta threatens to shoot back up with the guilt. “I would have been a bad father for my daughter if I hadn’t had you as a son first.”

“You were a great dad either way, Tony. I’m sorry-.”

“Those words again…” Tony warned. 

“ _ I’m sorry, _ ” Peter emphasized, “that I never told you sooner. When you were alive.”   


Peter stares into chocolate brown eyes and finds little specks of green. 

“When you were real.” 

“The Real Tony would definitely feel the same way. With a son like you, there’s no way he could not have.” The dead man’s smile hurt to look at when it seemed so genuine. 

Peter says nothing, turning his head away. Instead, he stares at the burning stars and remembers a time when he used to wonder what was out there. 

“What’s wrong, Peter?” Tony asks, concern bleeding from every pore.

“It’s j-just…” His lip has long since been healed, but he still winces when he bites down on it. 

Tony takes his smaller hand and holds it tight. 

“Five years.” Peter croaks out. 

“Oh.” The older’s eyes fall. 

“We missed out on five years, Mr. Stark. I blinked  _ once  _ and it was all gone. It was 2018 five months ago, and I-I missed  _ five years _ !” His voice is wrecked, piercing through the previous silence. 

“How many nights did I miss? How many nights did I miss watching Star Wars with you and Morgan and Pepper and May? Every stupid duet that we used to sing together, every time you threw a ball and I wasn’t there the catch it?” Tears stream down his face and Tony could only hold on tighter. 

“You had a _ wedding _ . You had a  _ daughter.  _ And I wasn’t there.” He sobs.

“It wasn’t your fault.” Tony says, but Peter doesn’t seem to realize he said anything at all. 

“Five months ago, I could have just passed out anywhere because I knew you were gonna be there when I woke up. In an alley, in a damn school bus. You were always  _ there, _ Mr. Stark. I could have snuck away to another planet and you would still be there! And you were! You were always there! _ ”  _

“I’m still going to be here, Peter. I’m still here.” Tony’s broken promises weren’t lost on Peter.

“No. No, you’re not.” He sobs, hands wrinkling the designer suit. “You’re not here, Mr. Stark. You’re not gonna watch me marry the one I love. You’re not going to be at my graduation in two years, you’re not gonna sit next to May. You aren’t going to yell when they call my name, and you and May aren’t going to be the World’s Proudest Parents together. You aren’t going to help me move into my first apartment, and I’m not gonna use the five thousand dollars that you left so that I can pay for rent. You’re never going to meet  _ my kids.  _ You’re never going to get to meet my kids and tell them the same shit you told me.  _ ‘You’re going to change the world’ _ ,  _ ‘I’m proud of you’.  _ Mr. Stark, I’m never going to hear you say those words again.” 

The boy is shaking, in his voice and his body. He looks as if one word will push him into a void that he can’t climb himself out of. 

“I love being Spider-Man, Mr. Stark. I love going out and saving people from the crimes that cops can’t stop and helping the people everyone forgets about. I really do.” Tony creates a shield with his arms, and Peter tries to feel a little more safer. “But it  _ hurts  _ to put on the suit.” 

“And I can’t even hear your voice on the voicemail recorder because Pepper disconnected it.” Peter swallows. 

“I’m sorry, Peter, I’m so sorry.” Tears drip onto his curls, but all Peter wants to focus on is the beating of a live heart in his father’s chest. 

“I’m tired of losing everyone I care about, Mr. Stark.” His voice carrying the weight of the world. 

“I know.” Tony whispers. “I wish I could tell you that it gets better, or that all this suffering will be worth it in the end, but I can’t, and I’m sorry. This whole superhero life. You can save all the lives you want, but sometimes you can’t save the ones you need the most.” 

Dust covers Tony’s mind, while burnt skin and a fading heartbeat echoes in Peter’s. 

“I’m not happy with the way I died, Peter, but I’m happy with the life I lived with you.” A stray curl blocks Peter’s vision before it’s immediately brushed away by a calloused finger. “I only wish we had more time.” 

It’s possible. To have more time with everyone he had lost, it’s possible. It would be easy to build his own time-machine now that the blueprints exist, it would be easy to jump to 2017 and spend an entire year trying to make up for five. It would be easy to jump back to 2015 and hug Ben one last time. Or go further and spend a day with his parents before he will never get the chance to again. He can go back to 2016 and say ‘No’ when Tony Stark asks him to go to Germany, and save his alternate-self from feeling the loss of another father. 

He can give them both more time. 

But he won’t. Peter doesn’t need time, he needs closure. A final goodbye where death isn’t waiting. 

“God, look at you.” Tony whispers, a finger preciously grazing against a still healing bruise on Peter’s face. Peter looks down, hoping his floppy curls will hide the rest of his face. “No, don’t do that.”

“It’s nothing that can’t be fixed, enhanced healing and all that.” Still, Tony stares as if his eyes alone can make the bruises disappear and the cuts close up. 

“A little more back-up won’t hurt Fury.” Tony grumbles.

“Yeah, but Quentin and I were on speed-dial, I guess. I don’t get why, I hung up on him like twenty times.” 

“Well, you still did amazing. Barely any back-up, barely time for proper preparation, you’re working great with a guy you just met.” Peter blushes with a shaking head. 

“Not amazing, not really. Haven’t you heard? I burnt down a bridge.” The self-deprecation isn’t lost on Tony. “I could’ve killed someone. I don’t think that’s very  _ superhero-y  _ of me.” 

Tony nods, agreeing. “It’s not, no. But you learned, you got better, and that’s what really matters in the end. Mistakes shouldn’t happen with people like us, but they do and the only thing we can really do is learn from it, make sure it doesn’t happen again, and you did that, Peter.”

“Do you… Do you think he would be proud of me? Okay with who I turned out to be?” The question kills him and the answer terrifies him, but no answer will just make Peter suffer longer. 

In the moment, it is easy to forget that the real Tony Stark is dead, it’s easy to forget that the man that he talks to is nothing more than an illusion. But when Tony speaks, he sounds so much like the real thing, it’s hard to not believe him at all. 

“You are going to be the best out of us all, Peter Parker.” He says, holding Peter’s face in his hand like it’s the most precious thing in the universe. “You’re going to be the symbol of hope for the world, and when the people look in the sky and see red and blue swinging just above their heads, they will know that they will be safe in the strongest hands possible. Tony knew that more than anyone else. I doubt he’s known anyone braver.”

“I did.” 

The boy looks so small and his voice so weak, and Tony can do nothing but carefully cup his face and place a loving kiss upon his forehead. The feeling of warm lips on his face blink Peter’s eyes shut, and for the first time in months, he can breathe properly again. 

“You are one of the best things that could have happened to him,” Tony whispers against his curls. “I wish you knew how much he loved you.”

“I think I do.” The boy wraps his arms around his father and holds on for the last time.

He will miss this. He will miss the hugs, the explosions in the labs when they worked together, changing Tony’s AC/DC to Big Time Rush when he isn’t looking. He will miss the city-wide game of catch they played, the Iron Man and Spider-Man team-ups that criminals never expect, every piano lesson Tony tried to teach him. He will miss Tony’s laugh, and his strive to be better even when he is already the best. He will miss the way Tony touches the scar on his chest and move forward with vigor because there’s not a single thing that will hold him back, how Tony held tight to his humanity even when he is surrounded by gods and aliens, and the way he grew to be a million times better than the men that raised him. He will miss every moment that led up to this one. 

“Thank you, Tony Stark.” Peter chokes out. “For everything.” 

When Peter opens his eyes, Tony is gone and his chest hurts, but he feels okay. 

~~~

When Peter walks into SHIELD’s sewage base hours later, Quentin sits cross-legged on the dirty concrete wearing nothing but stained sweatpants, using his cloak as a blanket, with bowls of pasta spread out around him. Mulan plays out from a smokey green illusion, and a small Cri-Kee happily hops around the man’s legs. When Quentin realizes that Peter enters, he gasps and uses his powers to put on his costume and chestplate.

“Your friends are getting suspicious of the PeterIllusion that I left with them. You’re probably gonna have to go visit them, for real, sometime.” Quentin says, waving away his movie and standing up.

Peter doesn’t seem to acknowledge what he said, going straight to tackling the man with a hug, and the unexpected embrace shocks Quentin into stillness. The clunky and cold weight of his golden chestplate is a vast difference from Tony’s warm arms, but the comfort and happiness Peter feels is all the same.  

“Hey, buddy.” The man laughs, hugging back just as tight. “You feeling okay?”

“Thank you, Quentin.” Peter responds instead. 

“No problem, kid.” He breathes, feeling Peter’s curls tickle his nose. “Let’s watch some Mulan.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope I didn’t waste your time :D
> 
>    
> Far From Home Canon? In MY fanfic? Un-fucking Likely


End file.
